Thursday 11 July 2013

Food: Brisbane

Weekend of relaxation and eating in Brisbane.

Gunshop cafe, West End


This was a super popular cafe and it was easy to see why. The decor was a little quirky with a few antiques strewn casually about the place. The front part is a cosy old room (the old gun shop), and the back an open space with a wall of strawberry pot plants, so cute!



 This was the standout dish: french toast brioche with maple syrup, crispy bacon and bananas. None of us were hardcore bacon fans, but the elements of crisp/mushy, sweet/salty really worked in this dish. 





Lamb cutlets for breakfast.. a little unusual but well paired with tasty tomato relish and bubble&squeak.



Salmon bagel with poached egg.


Chouquette, New Farm
A French patisserie with all sorts of tempting cakes and slices. We had strawberry tart, lemon tart and a chocolate caramel slice.


Two
 A little change to our usual cheap & cheerful eating style, this was serious sit down food with tablecloths and polished cutlery. This was their special dish, roast suckling pig which was served with roasted winter vegetables (including an impossibly intense caramelised carrot). 


Boggo Rd Jail markets


Have to love the name! Mostly a fresh food market, it sold lots of local produce and had an interesting selection of breakfast stalls. We had a Venezuelan arepa (corn cake) filled with pulled pork and served with hot spicy sauce, an okonomiyaki with local pork and eggs (so much cheesy goodness) and a Hungarian langos. What a delicious way to increase one's cholesterol - deep fried puffy bread topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon and herbs. 





Riverbend Books, Bulimba


As usual we ate too much, so had to stop for a drink and browse through the funky suburb of Bulimba. This iced coffee was at the Riverbend Books & Teahouse, where they had adorable magnolias in mini bottles at every table.



Yeshi Buna, Moorooka
We debated where to have our last meal, a late Sunday lunch. I had woken in the morning with a craving for injera, and so though my companions were pretty sceptical, we headed to Moorooka to search out African food.

This is apparently the place where many Sudanese refugees have settled, and it's pretty obvious they have settled in well. A group of young men were perched on the footpath playing dominos outside the Sudanese restaurant (spaghetti, chicken & chips - is that what they really eat in Sudan??). One of the shopping arcades held an Ethiopian bakery in which young people lingered playing cards. We went into a shop that sold all sorts of strange things imported from the Middle East, and the random collection (jeans, next to palm oil) made us wonder if shops were like this in Sudan.

We were grateful for the shopkeeper's suggestion that we try the restaurant next to the post office. I was highly amused to see that it's called Yeshi Buna, the name of a popular cafe chain in Addis Ababa. The place was super bright (yellow) and cheerful, with traditional Ethiopian eating tables scattered around simple normal tables. The owner was friendly and the food was homely, could not ask for more.



We had a mixed plate with meat & vegetable options - as in Ethiopia the tastiest were the lentil dish and the spinach dish. My friends didn';t like the injera, but it did take me quite a while to get used to it when I visited Ethiopia as well. This was a toned down version, hardly fermented at all with only a very mild sour taste. I was impressed that they even had breakfast options like firfir and chechebsa - I wish they were in Sydney so I could go there for breakfast! The coffee came served in the old school Ethiopian claypots, intensely strong and sweet, albeit without the popcorn that was served to other customers.
 

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